Slow going with the table! I'm determined to get it done so I can get back to the bureau project, but I ran into a snag...my paint won't dry!! It's been really humid here, so I thought that was the problem. Brought it in the house, where it's significantly less humid, and that didn't work. Preston said it needs to sit in the sun and bake, which made sense, so we had a couple of really beautiful days with much lower humidity. I let it sunbathe, and still the paint was tacky. So I did a little research, and found this to be a widespread problem with latex paint. The solution everyone had to offer was, use oil-base. Not helpful at this point. And since I did see a post from someone who painted a bureau and YEARS later stuff still stuck to it, I decided that I would just go ahead and poly it. Seems to be working out so far, the water-based polyurethane has no problem drying. I'm going to put at least 4 or 5 coats on it, since it's a table top.
As I paint, I have an audience of ginormous humpback crickets, or as i refer to them, my minions. They hang out on the walls and ceiling of the cellar and are about 1-1/4" long plus legs. The antenna, which you can't see in this pic, are easily 4" long. They started to populate the cellar after Crash got too sick to go down there and putter all the time, and it took me some time to get used to them because they're pretty ugly, not cute like the usual black field crickets. They look kind of spidery, also not a point in their favor. They definitely are getting bigger every year. But they seem to regard me as a minor nuisance, and if I make too much noise and commotion they go hide till I leave. I don't like to kill things, as long as they don't bother me I don't bother them. Sparky is a little disconcerted that such monsters dwell in the nether regions of her house, but I assured her that they don't want to come upstairs. They like the dark and damp. Plus, I can't remember the last time I saw a spider or a mouse in the cellar. I'm pretty sure the crickets are eating them. Ah, life in the country.
Finally, a beautiful evening I could spend in the garden without getting eaten alive!! Maybe mosquito season is over. Sparky said maybe they decided to fly south for the winter. Whatever they were doing yesterday, they weren't doing it in my garden. My friends the cows, as usual, saw me out there and came to demand their fair share of grass and weeds and of course, I'm happy to oblige. They look kind of small in this pic, but actually they're getting pretty big. There's just a drop off behind my garden so they're down lower than me. And they were eating that thistle where it pokes through the fence! Talk about heartburn! I would think it would hurt their tongues but I guess cows are pretty tough customers.
The thistle is beautiful, I left it alone because it lives in the DMZ between my garden fence and the pasture fence. The no-cow zone. Not a very big space, but big enough! So there have been lots of bees and butterflies checking it out. No goldfinches, but that's probably Sparky's fault because she feeds them all summer so they don't need to go looking for seeds.
Some things are doing very well in the garden this year, some not so much. The butternut squash seems very aggressive toward the bell peppers. Once it started to spread, it made a beeline for them and now is determined to wind its little tentacles around and choke the life out of them. Not cool. I planted the butternut and the cucumbers more toward the north end of the garden this year because everything that spreads tends to spread south. However, this year they are traveling north, which baffles me. But at least they're growing so I guess I shouldn't complain.
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| one lonely little ripe tomato! |
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